It has been suggested that there will be no more CP ships (and I'm guessing CP vehicles/droids too) because they will be replaced by R&D, so what plans are there for CP exchange after that? Right now the main reason for collecting CPs is to get the ships and vehicles but with that taken away will custom images/NPCs be enough incentive to make people try to earn CPs?

Also Syn has already said it...Dont believe everything you hear. There are a lot of speculations when it comes to R&D, but the truth is simply this. There has been no real information released on R&D yet and that will not change until R&D is actually here.

As for the CP ships, I highly doubt that they will scrub CP ships just b/c of R&D. You must think logically, CPs support the combine. (But I can not say for sure if they will or not..just stating my opinion). But once again, we all must show some patience.

CP ships aren't going anywhere. I think that must have started because someone with poor reading comprehension misinterpreted the "No more CP ships ever again! ...just kidding." line in the Sim News or something.

I have read the previous posts and understand nobody really knows what direction R&D will go but this little tidbit in the Sim News caught my attention:

" Per the Veltraa: The ship is technically called an Interdictor- Class Cruiser, but this is a variant model. Both this and the Interdiction version will be R&Dable."

So does that mean existing CP ships that have already been spawned will be upgradeable after R&D or that after R&D CP ships can be spawned that have the upgrades.

It matters to me because it would help me decide if I should spawn a Strike-Class Medium Cruiser when I get the CP's or should hold out for the Ventraa-Class Cruiser with the hope that someday I will be able to upgrade it to have gravity wells.

I'm 90 % sure that R&D is not intended to allow the "upgrading" or otherwise retrofitting of existing entities to convert them into variants. By "R&Dable" I'm fairly certain that only refers to the possibility of Researching that DC for production purposes only.